Small-Town Banker?

Off the train at Seattle one day last week stepped plump, upright Philip A. Benson, president of Brooklyn's big Dime Savings Bank. To nosy newshawks who asked him if it was true that bankers started wars he retorted: "Hooey!"

So saying, Banker Benson taxied to Seattle's Olympic Hotel for the 65th annual meeting of the American Bankers Association, of which he was president. To 2,500 banker delegates he sermonized: "We are meeting in the shadow of another great war. ... We must be prepared for whatever shocks may come."

No more definite than that were the other generalizations of the four-day gathering and boat trip. Bankers saw small chance of Government agencies taking over their functions, denounced Federal deficits, deplored the growth of the Government-inspired U. S. "gimme" attitude, felt that no long-run good would come to U. S. business from World War II. On one issue, however, they were with President Roosevelt. They wanted the neutrality act revised.

Cut-&-dried is the election of A. B. A. presidents. Anything but cut-&-dried is its newest one, Robert March Hanes, 49, president of Winston-Salem, N. C.'s Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. (largest bank between Washington and Atlanta; deposits: $91,000,000). Fond of quail shooting, lively parties, buzzing about, he has sat in both General Assembly and Senate of his State Legislature. For years he rode a motorcycle to the bank every day. Once it got away from him, ripped through his wife's pet flower bed. Evaded he: "Mildred, some damn fool has torn up your flower bed." Said she: "I know who the damn fool is."

A conservative Democrat, Banker Hanes is capable, hardworking, no pioneer. His family has not needed a pioneer since the late textile tycoon John W. Hanes Sr. piled up a fortune in the Hanes Hosiery Mills, invested most of it in R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (Camels). From him Son Hanes inherited about half a million dollars. But neither he nor any of his brothers coasted on their inheritance. All of them have made careers for themselves. Most notable is John W., who made a bigger fortune than his father, is now Under Secretary of the U. S. Treasury. Dr. Frederick is a professor at Duke University Medical School; Alex is a leading Winston-Salem stock broker; James is head of Hanes Hosiery Mills Co., largest U. S. women's seamless silk hosiery knitting plant; Ralph is head of a dye and finishing business which he founded.

For years small-town bankers have badgered their big-city brothers for more rural A. B. A. presidents. This year they got their candy. Wachovia is a small-town bank. But no hayseed is Wachovia's able President Hanes. As much at home in Wall Street as in Winston-Salem, he is a big-city banker in a small town.

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